Notes and Queries, Number 14, February 2, 1850 eBook

In the same volume of MSS. (art. 61.) there is the
description of a dagger “with a hefte of white
Caredon.”

From the size of the cross described, “Emerod”
can scarcely be read “Emerald,” as applied
by us to one of the precious stones.

Is “white Caredon” white cornelian?

Can any of your numerous correspondents give me a
note in answer to the above queries?

D.

46. Parliament Street, Westminster, Jan. 25.
1850.

Microscope, and Treatise upon it.—­I
am about to commence the study of the microscope.
I want to know where I can purchase the most perfect
instrument, and also the best Treatise upon it; this
information will indeed be valuable to me, as it would
enable me to go at once to the best sources without
loss of time.

R.M. JONES.

Chelsea, Jan. 2. 1850.

Old Auster Tenements.—­“W.P.P.”
wishes to know the meaning of the expression “Old
Auster Tenements,” by which certain lands in
the parish of North Curry, Somerset, are described
in Deeds and Court Rolls.

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REPLIES

THE FIELD OF FORTY FOOTSTEPS.

The fields behind Montague House were, from about
the year 1680, until towards the end of the last century,
the scenes of robbery, murder, and every species of
depravity and wickedness of which the heart can think.
They appear to have been originally called the Long
Fields, and afterwards (about Strype’s time)
the Southampton Fields. These fields remained
waste and useless, with the exception of some nursery
grounds near the New Road to the north, and a piece
of ground enclosed for the Toxophilite Society, towards
the northwest, near the back of Gower Street.
The remainder was the resort of depraved wretches,
whose amusements consisted chiefly in fighting pitched
battles, and other disorderly sport, especially on
the Sabbath day. Such was their state in 1800.

Tradition had given to the superstitious at that period
a legendary story of the period of the Duke of Monmouth’s
Rebellion, of two brothers who fought in this field
so ferociously as to destroy each other; since which,
their footsteps, formed from the vengeful struggle,
were said to remain, with the indentations produced
by their advancing and receding; nor could any grass
or vegetable ever be produced where these forty
footsteps were thus displayed. This extraordinary
arena was said to be at the extreme termination of
the northeast end of Upper Montague Street; and, profiting
by the fiction, Miss Porter and her sister produced
an ingenious romance thereon, entitled, Coming Out,
or the Forty Footsteps. The Messrs. Mayhew
also, some twenty years back, brought out, at the
Tottenham Street Theatre, an excellent melodrama piece,
founded upon the same story, entitled The Field
of Forty Footsteps.